About Us

Our Mission

Mississippi’s rich abundance of cultural and historical resources is held by institutions and repositories all across the state. Our mission at the Mississippi Digital Library (MDL) is to provide an online space to search and explore the wealth of materials available in Mississippi.

For researchers, we are committed to providing convenient, open access to digital collections throughout the state. We work hard to make sure the materials in our collections are findable and usable, and we are perpetually adding new materials on a variety of topics in various formats.

For partners, we place an emphasis on collection building and discoverability. Our goal is to help our partners build sustainable, high-quality digital collections and to get those materials in the hands of researchers who want them.

What we do

The MDL provides an online portal for discovery and access of digital collections throughout the state. In addition to access to materials we provide:

Training

Digitization training at all stages of the digitization process from selecting equipment and handling materials to creating metadata.

Limited digitization assistance through usage of specialized equipment and programs such as the Cultural Heritage Digitization Award

Who we are

The MDL is hosted by the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) Libraries and our offices are located on the USM Hattiesburg campus. Our advisory board is composed of representatives from partner institutions across the state. They provide guidance and support in MDL policy making, strategic planning, and program implementation.

We provide a FREE digital collections platform for institutions that cannot host one themselves. You maintain control over your collections while we worry about getting them online and keeping them working.